Fast, how fast the time goes by! It seems like
last year was a but a moment or two, then
fell off into some gaping chasm. I
tell you, it was only mere seconds of
fleeting shadow, no more than a soft heart’s
beating, and it was gone – only a small
flitting through the space of my life, barely
fitting in the palm of my reaching hand.
Now and then it seems the seconds drag on,
their exquisite patience fragile like a
rose, to be cherished and released again.
How does the universe see it? Does it
care about these few sparks of stuff wrapped in
clothes, soon to be wisps of nothing once more?
The entire essence of life seems stuck fast
sometimes; for example, there were times last
year when under my intent gaze, hours fell
away, and the science I used to tell
one day from the next, in some wild fleeting
surprise at finding my heart still beating,
turned into a pale chimera, flitting
off across the pond. It is quite fitting
that it is unclear and wrapped in mist now,
almost as if it were never quite there,
like the faint glimpse of a faded rose;
Much of that span, I could not tell you how
I lived it; but somehow I learned to care
about the world beyond time’s simple clothes.
02 MAR 2003
There are a couple of tricks in this pair of sonnets … can you catch them?
